


Thank You

by SomeoneOnThisWorld



Series: Destiel Tumblr Drabbles [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Angst, I wanted it to be fluffy but it turned out kind of angsty, M/M, Mark of Cain, Phone Calls & Telephones, So yeah, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeoneOnThisWorld/pseuds/SomeoneOnThisWorld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam are returning from their latest hunt, and Dean decides to stop by the road and give Castiel a call to get some things of his chest.</p><p>Set right after the last episode, Paint It Black, and it's possibly right before the next week's episode, but I can't know that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank You

Castiel rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as he flipped through one of the books in the bunker library. Sam asked him to go through everything even remotely associated with the Mark of Cain, just in case they missed something the last fiffteen times they read it.

He could feel himself getting tired – a dull and irritating feeling he never appreciated as a human, which was starting to get to him once again as the stolen grace was getting more and more weary with each passing day. He hadn’t slept in the past two days, thinking he could manage it, but he was wrong. The dropping eyelids were a good enough proof of that.

Just as he decided to finish the chapter before going to bed, his phone rang. He squinted his tired eyes at it. The only one who could be calling at this hour was Sam with news about their latest case. But he spoke to Sam about two hours ago when he called he and Dean were heading back to the bunker.

He picked the device up and soon saw Dean’s name written out on the screen. His stomach twisted in worry as he picked up hastily.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Cas,” Dean’s rough voice greeted him. He sounded tired, which was not a very new sound to hear. “I’m just calling to tell you we’re done with the case. We’re like an hour or two away from home.”

“That’s great,” Castiel said, smiling. It was already getting lonely in the bunker and it wasn’t really a secret that he missed Sam and Dean’s company. “Did everything go fine?”

“Yeah, yeah, just a simple salt’n’burn case, nothing special,” Dean said and cleared his throat. “Um, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“I, uh … this case, it …” Dean trailed off, seemingly not knowing what to say. Castiel could hear a breathy curse coming from the hunter.

“Are you alright?” Castiel asked, jumping on his feet in worry. He feared something happened with the Mark. And Sam wasn’t the one to make the call this time … “Where’s Sam?”

“What? Sam? He’s sleeping in the car. I stopped the car by the road so I could, um –  _talk_ to you in peace.”

Castiel relaxed visibly. He sat down in his chair.

“Okay,” he said. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I just …” Dean stopped to snort out a sarcastic laugh. “Well, hell if I know!”

Castiel furrowed his brow.

“You called me, I assumed …”

“No, Cas, I … I do have something to say. I just don’t know how to say it,” Dean cut him off, his voice growing smaller and smaller with each word. Castiel nodded, although Dean wouldn’t be able to see him, and waited for the beautiful man to continue.

“I went to confession,” Dean said, letting out another bitter laugh. “Got five Hail Marys for my penance and I don’t even know a single verse.”

Castiel chuckled at that.

“This is what you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked, amused. “Do you want me to teach it to you? Now, over the phone?”

“No, thanks, I think I’ll manage without it,” Dean said with a snort of laughter – an honest good-natured laugh for once, and after it died out a silence, thick with anticipation and something Castiel could not recognize, lowered itself upon them.

“Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about, Dean?” Castiel broke the silence by asking Dean curiously. The hunter took a deep breath.

“I guess,” he said. After a pause, he continued, “did I tell you what the ghost did? She gave a piece of her finger to some painter so he could use her own flesh and blood as paint, just because she was in love with him!”

“That’s drastic,” Castiel commented with slightly raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, it was,” Dean nodded. He sighed. “But, um … it kind of … please don’t laugh at this.”

“Never,” was Castiel’s immediate reply.

“It kind of reminded me how much …  _you_ have bled for me.”

The blood in Castiel’s vessel froze up inside his veins. This was it. Dean knew. Everything. There was no point in hiding his feelings any longer.

Oh, things were about to get very painful.

“Cas? You still there?”

“Y-yes,” Castiel stuttered.

“Oh, good. I thought you hung up on me,” Dean said, laughing nervously.

 _Why would he be nervous?_  Castiel asked himself as he felt his insides crumble to the ground and decided he had misinterpreted the tone of laughter.

“I just want to say …”

There it was.  _I don’t feel the same way. I’m sorry it ended like this. I can’t offer you more than friendship. I hope you’re still going to help us out._

“Thank you.”

Wait,  _what_?

“You’re thanking me?” Castiel asked suspiciously. Dean chuckled.

“Yeah, I am,” he said. “You sacrificed so damn much for me you’ve kept me save, although I’ve been nothing but an ass the entire time you distanced yourself from me, and I figured – how many people can thank their guardian angel for looking after them?”

Castiel smiled as his heart swelled. Angel of the Lord or not, that was very touching.

“You’re welcome, Dean,” he said. “You know you can always count on me, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why I …” Dean stopped talking abruptly, as if he was afraid of the next word. “That’s why I count you as family.”

The warm feeling in Castiel’s chest slowly faded away with those words, along with a smile.

_Family. Right._

“Well, I’ll see you when I get home, okay?” Dean said, even though it sounded more like a hopeful question. Like he didn’t deem it to be true.

“Of course,” Castiel said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good, that’s … good,” Dean said. “I’m gonna go now. Bye.”

“You sure you’re alright?” Castiel checked again.

“Of course, Cas,” Dean assured him and actually meant it – even if only for a moment. Hearing the angel’s voice was always comforting.

“Goodbye, Dean. See you soon.”

“Yeah, bye.”

And the line went dead.

* * *

Dean stared at his phone as if it was the device’s fault for him being such a coward.

 _That’s why I love you._ That was what he was going to say. What he felt.

He shook his head and put the phone back into his pocket.

_“There’s people … feelings … that I want to experience differently. Or maybe for the first time.”_

His own words echoed in his mind. He knew what he wanted to feel – with Cas, and no one else. It had always been him. And he needed a freaking Mark of Cain to figure it out.

He opened the car door and slumped down on the driver’s seat with a sigh, glancing at Sammy to make sure he didn’t wake up, and turned the key in the ignition, making the Impala’s engine roar to life. He drove off down the road, turning on the radio, but at the lowest volume possible, so he wouldn’t wake Sam up. He wasn’t in the mood to talk.

There was an Aerosmith casette still in the radio. He gathered that much from the soft ballad that started playing somewhere in the middle and a voice filled with emotion.

_“Baby,_

_you’re my angel._

_Come and save me tonight.”_

_Fucking perfect_ , the thought. Even his music decided to conspire against him.

Dean kept his eyes on the darkened road with his angel in mind. They needed to talk.

The Mark woke up and decided to burn on his arm, sending blood lust throughout his body. He scratched it over his jacket absentmindedly, thinking happy thoughts – or rather, daydreamed of everything he and Cas could have had already if he came to his senses earlier. If Cas felt the same way, that is.

The Mark kept burning and begging he submissed to it. Dean glared at the road, determinded to get to his angel. He could make Dean feel okay, even if there was no cure.

And the mark kept burning and burning and burning …

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is basically what I want Dean to tell Cas once down the road – the whole "thank you" speech.
> 
> Also, I've got some awesome news, people!! I'm on Patreon, and I'm posting my original work there :D if anyone wants to check it out, [here's the link](www.patreon.com/timeaftertime)


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